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Density fluctuations in high temperature fusion plasmas have been a central challenge to the development of fusion power. They are the cause of excessive anomalous losses from the plasma and are still not fully understood. A microwave scattering experiment is performed on the Saskatchewan Torus-Modified (STOR-M) tokamak for the first time to study these density fluctuations with wave-numbers in the range <b><i>k</i></b> = 5 /cm to 10 /cm. The fluctuations are found to follow <i>k¦Ñ_s</i> scaling consistent with ion drift waves; signatures of the electron temperature gradient (ETG) mode connected with anomalous electron losses are not detected. The fluctuation level in the STOR-M is measured to be <i>n_tilda/n</i> ¡Ö 0.1 at a mean perpendicular wave-number of <b><i>k</b>_perp</b></i> ¡Ö 7 /cm and is reported for the first time. The fluctuation levels are inversely proportional to the energy confinement time suggesting that these fluctuations are driving anomalous particle and energy losses from the STOR-M. The system is now fully operational and this work paves the way for future experiments with this equipment.

Density fluctuations in high temperature fusion plasmas have been a central challenge to the development of fusion power. They are the cause of excessive anomalous losses from the plasma and are still not fully understood. A microwave scattering experiment is performed on the Saskatchewan Torus-Modified (STOR-M) tokamak for the first time to study these density fluctuations with wave-numbers in the range <b><i>k</i></b> = 5 /cm to 10 /cm. The fluctuations are found to follow <i>k¦Ñ_s</i> scaling consistent with ion drift waves; signatures of the electron temperature gradient (ETG) mode connected with anomalous electron losses are not detected. The fluctuation level in the STOR-M is measured to be <i>n_tilda/n</i> ¡Ö 0.1 at a mean perpendicular wave-number of <b><i>k</b>_perp</b></i> ¡Ö 7 /cm and is reported for the first time. The fluctuation levels are inversely proportional to the energy confinement time suggesting that these fluctuations are driving anomalous particle and energy losses from the STOR-M. The system is now fully operational and this work paves the way for future experiments with this equipment.

<p>Constructive elastic microwave scattering, or, historically, coherent microwave scattering (CMS), refers to the inference of small plasma object characteristics via in-phase electromagnetic scattering – and has become a valuable technique in applications ranging from photoionization and electron-loss rate measurements to trace species detection, gaseous mixture and reaction characterization, molecular spectroscopy, and standoff measurement of local vector magnetic fields in gases through magnetically-induced depolarization. Notable advantages of the technique include a high sensitivity, good temporal resolution, low shot noise, non-intrusive probing, species-selectivity when coupled with resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI), single-shot acquisition, and the capability of time gating due to continuous scanning.</p> <p>Originally, the diagnostic was used for the measurement of electron total populations and number densities in collisional, weakly-ionized, and unmagnetized small plasma objects – so called collisional scattering. However, despite increased interest in recent years, the technique’s applicability to collisionless plasmas has remained relatively unexplored. This dissertation intends to expand upon the theoretical, mathematical, and experimental basis for CMS and demonstrate the constructive Thomson & Rayleigh scattering regimes for the first time. Furthermore, this work seeks to explore other novel and relevant capabilities of CMS including electron momentum-transfer collision frequency measurements via scattered phase information and spatially-resolved electron number characterizations of elongated plasma filament structures.</p> <p>This dissertation additionally leverages the technique to diagnose microplasmas and situations of particular interest. Primarily, photoionization (PI) – including UV resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization, non-resonant visible PI, and mid-IR tunneling ionization in gaseous media. Such processes bear importance to studies on nonequilibrium plasmas, soft ionization in mass spectrometry, the development of compact particle accelerators, X-ray and deep UV radiation sources, laser-assisted combustion, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, species detection, mixture characterization and spectroscopy, studies on nonlinear beam propagation (filamentation, self-trapping and pulse splitting, dispersion, modulation instabilities), and so on. Finally, the application of CMS to ion thrusters is demonstrated.</p>

Cette thèse est consacrée à la mise en place d'un système hyperfréquence dédié à l'imagerie du proche sous-sol. L'analyse de l'onde mesurée après interaction de l'onde incidente avec le milieu permet de remonter aux propriétés électromagnétiques de la structure illuminée. Ici, nous choisissons d'utiliser une seule fréquence en s'appuyant sur une configuration multistatique pour garantir une meilleure diversité de l'information.L'imagerie quantitative exige un calibrage minutieux des données mesurées après correction des erreurs expérimentales. Un calibrage a été donc proposé, basé sur la mesure du diagramme de rayonnement de chaque antenne. Celles-ci sont modélisées quantitativement en champ proche grâce à une combinaison de fils sources adéquatement optimisée. Ce calibrage, rapide et simple, ne nécessite pas d'objets de calibrage supplémentaires. Il a été d'abord testé dans le cas de la diffraction par des objets 2D en espace libre, puis dans le cas d'objets faiblement enfouis. Les champs calibrés servent de données d'entrée à des algorithmes d'inversion. En terme de localisation, les résultats obtenus sont très satisfaisants. Quant à la caractérisation, la configuration stratifiée apparaît bien moins propice que la configuration en espace libre, de part la faible quantité d'information disponible. Des changements ont été apportés à la configuration (différentes antennes avec ou sans orientation) dans l'optique d'améliorer le rapport signal à bruit. Bien que les reconstructions des permittivité soient encore perfectibles, les premiers résultats sont intéressants d'autant plus que les algorithmes n'exploitent aucune information a-priori sur la cible. / This thesis is devoted to the development of a microwave system dedicated to subsurface imaging applications. The analysis of the measured wave after the interaction with the medium allows to retrieve the electromagnetic properties of the probed structure. Here, we choose a single frequency operating mode combined with a multistatic configuration in order to improve the information diversity.Quantitative imaging requires a high-precision calibration of the measured data even after a careful correction of experimental errors. Thus, a calibration method is proposed, exploiting the measurement in free-space of the radiation pattern of each antenna. These patterns are quantitatively modeled thanks to an optimized linear combination of elementary sources positioned on the antenna's aperture. This simple and efficient calibration avoids additional measurements with calibration objects. This method provides successful results in a 2D free space scattering problem, as well as in the shallowly buried targets case.The calibrated data serve as inputs to inversion algorithms. As localization is concerned, very satisfactory detection results are obtained. Regarding the characterization aspects, the results indicate that the stratified configuration is less suitable than the free space configuration, due to its lack of spatial information. In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, some amendments are made to the experimental configuration (different antennas with or without orientation). Although the permittivity reconstructions are perfectible, the first results are promising especially since no a-priori on the targets has been inserted in the inversion algorithm so far.

<p>A specific class of small-scale plasmas (column diameters in a sub-mm to mm range) at rarefied pressures (under 10 Torr) enclosed in glass tubes hold significant interest currently in the scope  of  tunable  plasma  devices.  Specifically,  applications  of  these  plasmas  include  plasma antennas and plasma photonic crystals. Reliable diagnostics are necessary for the development and implementation of these technologies as conventional tools are inadequate in such small-scale plasmas.</p> <p>Coherent microwave scattering in the Thomson regime (TMS) was recently demonstrated for diagnostics of electron number density in miniature free-standing laser-induced plasmas in air under  10  Torr  with  plasma  column  diameters  <  0.5  mm.  However,  measurements  by  TMS diagnostics have never been applied for small-scale plasma objects enclosed within glass tubes. Additionally, TMS measurements were never independently confirmed with a previously verified experimental technique. This work aims to validate results of TMS measurements for small-scale plasma  objects  enclosed  within  glass  tubes  using  the  previously  established  and  well-known hairpin resonator probe. A DC discharge plasma column of fairly large diameter (about 1.5 cm) is used in the experiments to ensure reliable non-intrusive measurements by the hairpin resonator probe.</p> <p>The experiments were conducted in a DC discharge tube with a diameter of 1.5 cm and a length of 7 cm. TMS diagnostics yielded electron number densities of about 5.9×10¹⁰cm^-3, 2.8 ×10¹⁰cm^-3and  1.8 ×10¹⁰cm^-3at  pressures  of  0.2,  0.5  and  2.5  Torr,  respectively.  The corresponding  densities  measured  with  the  hairpin  resonator  probe  were  4.8×10¹⁰cm^-3,  3.8 ×10¹⁰cm^-3 and 2.6 ×10¹⁰cm^-3. Discrepancies between the two techniques were within 30% and can be attributed mainly to inaccuracies in the sheath thickness estimation required the hairpin resonator probe results.</p>

<p>Laser-induced plasmas since their discovery in the 1960’s have found numerous applications in laboratories and industries. Their uses range from soft ionization source in mass spectroscopy, development of compact particle accelerator, and X-ray and deep UV radiation sources to diagnostic techniques such as laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy and laser electronic excitation tagging. In addition, the laser-induced plasma is important for studying of various nonlinear effects at beam propagation, such as laser pulse filamentation.</p> <p>This work deals with two challenging aspects associated with laser-induced plasmas. First is the study of Multi-Photon Ionization (MPI) as a fundamental first step in high-energy laser-matter interaction critical for understanding of the mechanism of plasma formation. The second is application of laser induced plasma for diagnostics of combustion systems.</p> <p>Numerous attempts to determine the basic physical constants of MPI process in direct experiments, namely photoionization rates and cross-sections of the MPI, were made; however, no reliable data was available until now, and the spread in the literature values often reached 2–3 orders of magnitude. This work presents the use of microwave scattering in quasi-Rayleigh regime off the electrons in the laser-induced plasma as method to measure the total number of electrons created due to the photoionization process and subsequently determine the cross-sections and rates of MPI. Experiments were done in air,<i> O₂, Xe, Ar, N₂, Kr</i>, and <i>CO</i> at room temperature and atmospheric pressure and femtosecond-laser pulse at 800 nm wavelength was utilized. Rayleigh microwave scattering (RMS) technique was used to obtain temporally resolved measurements of the electron numbers created by the laser. Numbers of electrons in the range 3 × 10⁸–3 × 10¹² were produced by the laser pulse energies 100–700 <i>μ</i>J and corresponding electron number densities down to about 10¹⁴ cm^-3 in the center of laser-induced spark were observed. After the laser pulse, plasma decayed on the time scale from 1 to 40 ns depending on the gas type and governed by two competing processes, namely, the creation of new electrons from ionization of the metastable atoms and loss of the electrons due to dissociative recombination and attachment to oxygen. </p> <p>Diagnostics of combustion at high pressures are challenging due to increased collisional quenching and associated loss of acquired signal. In this work, resonance enhanced multiphoton photon ionization (REMPI) in conjunction with measurement of generated electrons by RMS technique were used to develop diagnostics method for measuring concentration of a component in gaseous mixture at elected pressure. Specifically, the REMPI-RMS diagnostics was developed and tested in the measurements of number density of carbon monoxide (<i>CO</i>) in mixtures with nitrogen (<i>N₂</i>) at pressures up to 5 bars. Number of REMPI-induced electrons scaled linearly with <i>CO</i> number density up to about 5×10¹⁸ cm^-3 independently of buffer gas pressure up to 5 bar, and this linear scaling region can be readily used for diagnostics purposes. Higher <i>CO</i> number densities were associated laser beam energy loss while travelling through the gaseous mixture. Four (4) energy level model of <i>CO</i> molecule was developed and direct measurements of the laser pulse energy absorbed in the two-photon process during the passage through the <i>CO</i>/<i>N₂</i> mixture were conducted in order to analyze the observed trends of number of REMPI-generated electrons with <i>CO</i> number density and laser energy.</p>